LearningFA - postcards for Carma

Woohoo, this one came up right ways so you don't have to do any acrobatics :)

The wonderful, gracious, leader of Learning FA got some devastating family news recently regarding her son. He has advanced cancer.

She has been involved with a home called Carma House, which is a support group for cancer survivors, for about the past year or so. A number of us are sending her fabric postcards to help raise money for them.

If you visit her blog at http://shirl-oneofakindfiberarts.blogspot.com/ you can see some of the fabulous cards that have already arrived and learn more about this worthwhile fundraiser.

One of the other groups I am with LadyofSHE is about to start a project to raise money for a cancer victim. I'll tell you more about that when I get back from vacation. It will be Christmas ornament orientated.

Textile Corner - Learning FA - simple landscape - an update

I was planning on getting the top section completely finished today but my sewing machine is not co-operating. I'm currently working on the trees and should finish the foreground "bushy bits" tomorrow.

I was a bit concerned because I have used up all my stiffer backing and am not sure I will get to a store till later this week. Shirley suggested using interfacing and I found a large piece of medium weight in one of my drawers. Works quite well. I think I need to switch to a narrower needle.

How does "A Visit to The Lake" sound as a title? I've got some thoughts running through my head regarding additions AFTER the basic piece has been done :)

Some of the other members of the class have already submitted their pieces. I've been enjoying looking at the different interpretations of the same subject.

Textile Corner - "4 Seasons" Challenge - an update

I'm thread painting the tree ....... finally. It's proving to be a whole lot more fun than I thought it would. I'm currently putting on color one and am planning on doing a couple more colors before adding the snow. By the time it is done there will be a lot more twiggy bits.

When I turned the piece over I got a nice surprise. A white on white thread tree. It doesn't photograph well but I may develop the look further in another project :)

Textile Corner - 4 Seasons Challenge. step 4

I've been playing around with shapes and placement. There's a lot of trees in the original picture but I don't have much in the way of "winter tree" type fabrics so went with a mottled brown for the far distant ones. Originally I had the "band of trees" come right down to the covered bridge but it gave a weird foreshortening effect so I cut the treeline back to get some more distance.

I tried to thread paint the snow on the mountains which did not work so I attached some "snow" fabric and will probably paint in the bottom edges and shadows.

I had fun adding details to the wood section of the covered bridge and just have to add the inside shadow that goes across the road.

My tree had an accident so I will have to either add to the branch that shredded off or try to thread paint it. I'm un-decided about how much snow, if any, to add to the tree.

Next - work out the tree placements on the right side of the bridge. That's a lot of snow there.

Textile Corner - 4 Seasons challenge - step 3

The scene with the distant hills added, snow on the roof and a couple of variations for the dirt road.

The next steps will be to add the middle distance trees, foreground snow and shadows. Then I'll leave it for a day or two before attaching everything together. (That's my thinking at the moment. Knowing the way my brain works it may change somewhat :) )

One change I am thinking about making is to move the bridge slightly more off center and add a few more small trees to the right hand side.

Textile Corner - 4 seasons challenge - step 1

(Well wouldn't you know it I can now do more than one picture per posting AND move them round on the page. Woohoo, my new blog learning moment for today!)

Some of us are participating in a 4 seasons challenge at LearningFA. Our wonderful teacher, Shirley, gave us some pictures to choose from.

After waaaaaay to much thinking about it I have opted for the covered bridge. So far I have trolled around the internet looking at other pictures, mainly in Canada, and surprise, surprise actually found one that looked fairly close to the painting. This was just to give me some color ideas though we are only supposed to go with the black and white one for reference. I've opted to go with the weather worn grey affect for the bridge.

Since I have never really done much in the way of thread painting before I re-read almost every piece of information Shirley had available plus a few other resources on the web. That gave me an AHA moment related to sketching, water color painting and thread sketching.

I decided to trace the basic elements of the picture so that I can determine what I really need to use fabric for and what areas I have to delve into for thread painting. We have been advised to simplify our pictures so a lot of the fiddly little tree branches will probably not show up in my finished pictures. Shirley suggested I take out the bridge "advertising" pieces.

I have some of my fabric picked out for the various seasons but came to the realisation that I am short of tree and covered bridge "types". Oh well that means a trip or two to the fabric stores and what quilter loves doing that (sigh).

I've decided to start with a winter scene and this week will spend my time cutting out the trees, bridge and try a variety of sky colors. I haven't decided how I'm going to do the snow shadows yet. Who knows, if the snow is deep enough, maybe a skiier will show up :)

Learning FA "Spring" swap

So I got busy this morning and finished up my cards with the intention of getting them in the mail today. That won't be happening.

We got blasted by sheer winds and tornado/severe thunderstorm type rain. (One of the joys of living in "tornado alley".) Everything was so white for I while I initially thought it was snowing. There's some power lines and trees down between our house and the post office. One of my friends has a tree on her roof.

Needless to say I cancelled any appointments I had for this morning and stayed home :) Lucy was so anxious she absolutely would not go anywhere but right beside/on my feet till the worst was past.

"Spring" fabric postcard exchange

Sunday night I got a spurt of creativity for a postcard exchange I am participating in at Learning FA.

My son ended up assisting me. I was ironing things onto the background and he strolled over to the ironing board to see what I was up to. He started playing with the leaves I was cutting out and suggested adding in twigs to the main branch. He has a good eye for detail I think.

Now I just have to mull over what stitching I want to do before adding on the backs. I might also add more leaves and flowers.